Progressive Creation: An Overviewby Dale Tooley

Introduction

Most people, sometimes even Christians, will be aware of
only three alternative views used to explain the existence of the
natural world in which we live and the seemingly infinite universe
beyond. However, a fourth, and increasingly accepted alternative
explanation has been called "progressive creation" or the
day-age interpretation.

Creation

First there are the young earth creationists, who are often seen as
putting strong emphasis on God having created everything instantly and
out of nothing all in the matter of six days, some 6000 years ago.
Genesis chapters one and two must be taken "as read" in a very
concrete way, without pictorial input, and are held to be
historically and scientifically correct when read in this way. So
according to this view about six to ten thousand years ago God spoke
everything into being in six solar days and then rested on the
seventh twenty-four hour period.1 Often there is no recognition of the fact that many Christians,
calling themselves creationists, do not hold to the Genesis
account of creation quite so concretely.

Natural Forces Only

In sharp contradiction to the above are the Secular Evolutionists who
see the whole of existence as purely material with "matter" as
eternally existent and all life coming into being by accident over many
millions of years. A big problem they have is that modern science verifies the
Big Bang theory. That is, that the universe is exploding
and can be traced back to a single point. If the universe has a
beginning, it must have a beginner! A question that that
can be asked of the secular evolutionist is : "How can you go
back forever without accepting a supernatural concept"?

Science historian Frederick Burnham commented that for scientists,
"Belief in God is more respectable today than at any time in the
last hundred years". ("Science & Religion are discovering
Commonality in Big Bang theory." Los Angeles Times, 2 May 1992).

Of course, it is accepted that there are "natural forces" at
work. These natural forces provided a home for the millions of
species of the earth who evolved by the "natural selection"
from those most fit to survive in their environment.

It should be pointed out that it actually takes an enormous leap of
faith to believe that these hundreds of very finely tuned natural forces
themselves exist by blind chance and there is no process of
"evolution" that can account for the incredible fine tuning of
them to make life possible. Evolution has to do with life forms and
is more accurately described as "Blind Chance Evolution" (i.e., the ideas in Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker
and is frustrated by two contradictory assertions: life comes only from
life; and life originally rose from the inorganic).

A third view rejects the blind chance element of evolution, contending
instead that a higher intelligence engineered the first forms of matter
and the first life form, or forms, and arranged for natural forces
He/She or "It" put in place initially to evolve upwardly.
Along with the creationist positions the theistic evolutionist can
see in the physics of the universe harmony, consistency, pervading
beauty and elegance of design. It's interesting that when you see
science fiction programs on film or television nobody can come up with
anything more beautiful than earth scenes or the human form! Unearthly
forms are always ugly, never beautiful, to our eyes at least.

In the theistic evolutionist's view natural selection and the transmutation of
species are seen as the tooling used to bring about
higher and higher life forms. Here, usually, God does not supernaturally intervene at any point,
although convictions do differ widely and it would be quite wrong to say
that all who believe in "evolution" deny the intervention of
the miraculous.

Both creationists and theistic evolutionists are often
mocked as believing in "the God of the gaps" but the opposite
of this is "no God of the gaps". The facts are that there are
gaps, everywhere ,which science cannot fill with purely natural
explanation. By leaving God out of the equation "naturalism"
is constantly stretched to find answers. Some will claim that science is
closing the gaps where Christians put God as the only explanation. But
while some gaps are closing bigger and wider ones are opening up
elsewhere, especially in the finely tuned aspects of the universe and
the intricacies of cell formation so the gap-filling exercise
is never ending.

Pantheism, the view that God and nature are one, shares
much in this viewpoint but denies, or greatly downgrades, the idea of a
personal God.

Somewhere between

A fourth view, which I am surprised many Christians still do not know by
name, but which without considering the mechanics, many instinctively
believe, is called progressive creationism. It is fair to say
it lies in between theistic evolution and young earth creationism, drawing some points from both but always insisting on the
input of an Intelligent Designer. It agrees with the former in believing that there was a much longer time
frame than six twenty-four hour periods and holds that each new life
form was not, necessarily, created out of nothing, or out of previously
non-living material. Or at least that the "template" of
previously existing life is used again - with adjustments. It
agrees with the latter, not only in affirming the verbal inspiration of
the Bible, but that God was present at every stage of the creation of
life and that every new life form was a deliberate and miraculous act of
God.

It is unfortunate that Progressive Creation, or Old Earth Creation, as
it is sometimes known , is often tagged from the left and the right with
the word "compromise" - given its "shameful or
disreputable concession" meaning. But of course this has the built
in bias that the truth lies in one of two or more extreme positions. We
do not believe this to be the case here.

The word "evolution" is often so emotionally charged
among Christians that its mere mention is upsetting. However
in its ordinary usage it simply means "change in respect to
time" whether short or long. To some Christians its definition is
restricted to a narrow biological one implying natural
processes that gave rise to all the different species. Christians
need to learn to react less aggressively to a mere mention of the
word.

The Progressive Creationist accepts the flood story (properly
understood) as truth and not myth. He accepts all the fundamentals
of conventional, mainstream theology, including the creation of man as a
totally unique being, capable of spiritual communication with God, his
fall into sin and the redemption provided by the Second Adam, the Lord
Jesus Christ. I have yet to find a Progressive Creationist who
does not take an historical Church view in his approach to Scripture.

Too Concrete

He differs only with the Young Earth Creationist in that he
believes, based on his knowledge of the Word of God and the revelations
of true science, (twin revelations given by God) that the
words of the Genesis Creation and Flood stories can be taken more concretely than the Holy Spirit ever intended. He is most concerned that many
educated people find a stumbling block to the Gospel from misconceptions
of what Genesis chapters 1 to 11 really say.

He hears this sort of question often put: "Why consider the
message of a book that right from the beginning contradicts
established facts of science?" It will not do to respond by
saying something like: "Evolution is a totally unproved
theory". There is much more to the subject of origins
than just "natural selection and the transmutation of
species" and there are many things that can rightly be held
under a more general heading of "evolution".

The progressive creationist is often dismayed at the scorn poured on
honest and hardworking scientists in their legitimate research of
natural history. The Christian community should acknowledge that
Copernican astronomy, the existence of the antipodes, surgical
operations and vaccinations, just to name a few matters, were all
attacked, in their time, by some who could be loosely termed
"fundamentalists".

So the question should be posed: Have we made in geology and
similar sciences, a monster out of a balloon? Surely, if Genesis
is silent about secondary causes and science is ignorant about first
causes, it is only as we bring them together that we can get a full
understanding of the universe and the geological record on earth. We
need the twin revelations of God. The Bible, unlike any other book, is
intended to be read and understood by all cultures and
spanning several thousands of years. This places some serious
restraints on the extent and detail of science it can contain.

St. Augustine warned: "Be on guard against giving interpretations
of Scripture that are farfetched or opposed to science, and so exposing
the Word of God to the ridicule of unbelievers."

There are certain basic facts that are beyond dispute here: For
instance, light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second and comes
from galaxies, some of which are billions of light years away. We can
check just how far the light has come by the distinct variations in
colour in relation to the distance traveled. On February 23, 1987
there was a supernova, in space that actually happened 160,000
light-years away but observed on that day. Modern man, because of the
huge time lags in space, has the privilege of actually witnessing some
of God's handiwork. Psalm 90:4 says: "For a thousand years
are in your sight as a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in
the night.." Some have claimed that light was once much
faster but is slowing down. But studies show that the speed of light in
incredibly stable. A much faster speed of light changes the balance of
everything else and would make life impossible.

Surely the intent of the creation narrative is not to focus on time but to
evoke the worship, adoration, obedience and love that belongs to God,
and to dismiss any view of nature which denies the existence of One
Personal God who existed before nature and is the master of His own
creation.

Jeremiah 10:12 states, "He [God] has made the earth by His
power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out
the heavens at His discretion".

The Bible depicts God as the God of nature's laws, who has unlimited
ability to work through His own laws of nature. The crossing of
the Red Sea is an example:

"The Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east
wind all that night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were
divided". (Exodus, 14:21)

God here is seen to be active within nature. Certainly wherever
there is life anywhere in the universe it has to be the result of God's
activity within nature.

Fossils

The progressive creationist does not accept that "flood geology"
can even begin to explain the rich geological order of the
earth and its fossils. Land masses arise gradually as a result of
volcanic activity and plate tectonics. These wrinkle the earth's surface and, after the added effects of erosion, create the
geological strata. As plate tectonics and volcanic activity
superseded erosion land masses rose above the ocean to cover
about 30% of the earth's surface. It is from these forces that we get
the geological formations we have, not enormous earth
shattering events triggered by a deluge of the kind the "flood geologists" envisage.

Coral reefs, for instance, are very fragile and could never survive this
deluge. Varves are annual layers of sediment that form distinct
layers of seasonal deposits in lake beds and the chemical deposits are
different in the summer than they are the rest of the year. The green
river formation consists of more than 20,000,000 annual layers! There
are fossils neatly set between the layers making them impossible to be
there as a result of a single flood.

The progressive creationist holds to the conviction that the
Genesis flood was regional, for which he has some
overwhelming biblical and rationally deduced evidence. For one
thing, the several million species in the world have their own
ecological niches. There are thousands of distinct life forms that
exist in Australia and New Zealand alone and they live a long, long way
from where the Ark came to rest. The three-toed sloth is an animal that
only travels at, top speed, 0.068 m.p.h. (!) and the fossil
record says they have always been indigenous to South America only.

Present indications are that there were anywhere up to one billion
species that existed in the past but are now extinct. Those that
think that the several million species that now exist
descended from a much smaller number of species in the ark really
believe in incredibly swift macroevolution and rapidly undo all
their anti-evolutionary arguments. It's just not feasible for it to
happen within the limits of microevolution. To say otherwise is to
bring justified mocking from the scientific community (those that speak
from within their specified discipline).

There is in Western Asia a deeply depressed area extending from the Sea
of Aral to the Steppes of the Caucasus and around the southern shores of
the Caspian, which includes the hilly regions of Ararat, where the Ark
came to rest ( not Mount Ararat - the Bible does not say that)
and the Great Salt Desert. It is the recognized centre of the
human family at the time of the flood. This is an area of
considerably over 300,000 square kilometers and more than enough reason
for the need of an Ark the size that Noah built. It is perfectly
within the bounds of Scripture to believe that the deluge was universal
only in so far as the area and observation of the narrator extended.
The word "har" as in "mountain" is actually a
generic term for any elevation and "under all heaven" is a
figure of speech common to the Bible, e.g., Deut. 2:25 and Isaiah 13:5
,7. The writers of scripture often used a form of speech known as
synecdoche, where a whole is used for a part.

When God told the Israelites that He would put the fear of them upon the
people under the whole heaven (Deut. 2:25) surely He meant only those
known to the Israelites. When Genesis 41:57 says that all
countries came to Egypt to buy grain, it must mean only those countries
known to the Egyptians. Did Ahab look for Elijah in every country
of earth? 1 Kings 18:10 says he ignored "no nation or
kingdom". Must we believe he searched through India and China?

These observations are just a start. I doubt whether many
Christians have ever thought through the implications of a fully
universal flood. The number of species in the world is almost
infinitely vaster than those animals on show at the zoo. What
happened to the thousands of species dependent on fresh water then mixed
with salt? What happened to all the flora of the earth crushed
under 9 kilometers of water (if indeed the Flood covered even
Mount Everest)!
What about geographical distribution where species have been isolated.
The marsupials of Australia are a good example. Kangaroos, koalas,
wombats, Tasmanian devils (and the now extinct dog like marsupial
the Tasmanian tiger) and all sorts of rat like marsupials and their
fossils are only found in this region. Moas, kiwis and many other
distinctive species of bird, only in New Zealand.
The queries just go on and on.

Evolutionary tree?

But now the "evolutionist" has much to answer for also:

How then do we explain the fossil history which appears to show a
progression from simple to complex? This could not be through the "transmutation of species"
as it is generally taught, because, as every good creationist knows, the "evolutionary
tree" is all twigs and leaves with no
branches and certainly no trunk! The fossil record does not
exhibit a gradual step by step development.

"The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at
the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however
reasonable, not the evidence of fossils…" (Stephen Jay Gould in
The Panda's Thumb, 1980, pp.179, 80).

Almost always we find a sudden appearance of a particular species
followed by "stasis", meaning that the species remain
virtually unchanged for its tenor on earth. There are species that appear to be transitional but little to no
transitional forms (for example half-wings). All examples found are
fully formed and fully functional.

Charles Darwin wrote: "If my theory be true, numberless
intermediate varieties, linking close together all the species of the
same group must surely have existed."

There should be innumerable step by step fossils available to us, but
there is not. Biologist David S. Woodruff has stated: "Fossil
species remain unchanged throughout most of their history and the record
fails to contain a single exampleof a significant
transition." ("Evolution :The Paleobiological View" in
Science 16 May 1980, p. 716).

There are huge gaps at the bottom of every new order of life, which is not just the opinion of a novice.

C.C. Olsen who wrote "The Evolution of Life" for New American Library
(1965, p. 94) said: "Many new groups of animals suddenly appear,
apparently without close ancestors. Most major groups of
organisms, phyla, sub-phyla, and even classes, have appeared this way.
This aspect of the record is real, not merely the result of faulty or
biased collecting. A satisfactory explanation of evolution must
take it into consideration and provide an explanation".

A.S. Romer, who wrote Man and the Vertebrates and Vertebrate
Paleontology, on no fewer than sixteen occasions admits huge gaps
in the fossil record that prevents the relating of various origins of
life forms. This includes such large groupings as the monkeys,
seals, marsupials, bats, marine reptiles, turtles, frogs, salamanders
and the first vertebrates. From other scientific works we can also
add urchins, sponges, jellyfish, trilobites, invertebrates, spiders,
insects, snakes, monotremes (egg-laying mammals), rodents, deer, cattle,
and giraffes.

Geologist David Kitts in an article "Paleontology and
Evolutionary Theory said: "Evolution requires intermediate
forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." (Evolution,
Sept. 1974, p. 467)

Coding and re-coding

Nature itself lacks the means of bringing about hundreds of thousands of
improbable accidents. Intelligence has to be injected. As yet
biochemists cannot manufacture from scratch a single Deoxyribonucleic acid: the chemical inside the nucleus of a cell that carries the genetic instructions for making living organisms.DNA or
Ribonucleic acid: a chemical that directs the manufacture of proteins and sometimes codes for the genetic material within certain organisms.RNA molecule or any of the more complex Organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain, joined together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of the adjacent amino acid residues.proteins. Abiogenesis remains impossible. The vast complexity of even the simplest life
form argues against natural self-assembly.

The requirements of both Science and Genesis can be met by
what might be called Extra-Cosmic Coding and Re-coding.
We must look outside the physical and biological realm.

Victor Pearce (British Anthropologist, with honours) in his book titled
Who Was Adam? says, "The common feature of all
living organisms is the Deoxyribonucleic acid: the chemical inside the nucleus of a cell that carries the genetic instructions for making living organisms.DNA code. As there is only one language
used in it the instructions must come from one source, and as the
instructions for the simplest viable unit of life are complex, that
source must be an adequate one with intelligence equal to that needed to
invent a computer-automated factory".

Since the one source is not made of the material things themselves it is
not observable.

As Hebrews 11:3 puts it, "... the things which are seen were not
made of things which are visible".

The smallest piece of An organic compound made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain, joined together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of the adjacent amino acid residues.protein could not exist without a previous
equivalent piece of Deoxyribonucleic acid: the chemical inside the nucleus of a cell that carries the genetic instructions for making living organisms.DNA code instruction and could not therefore be
"bits of the machinery". Even a virus is not complete in
itself, but must practice symbiosis with bacteria or other living cells. The simplest
forms of life have a Deoxyribonucleic acid: the chemical inside the nucleus of a cell that carries the genetic instructions for making living organisms.DNAThe order of nucleotides in a DNA or RNA molecule, or the order of amino acids in a protein molecule.sequence of considerable length. Microbiologist
James Shapiro of the University of Chicago declared in National
Review that "There are no detailed Darwinian accounts
for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system,
only a variety of wishful speculations." (Shapiro 1996).

In Nature University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne
stated, "There is no doubt that the pathways described by Behe
(author of Darwin's Black Box) are dauntingly complex, and
their evolution will be hard to unravel.. .. (We) ..may forever
be unable to envisage the first proto-pathways." (Coyne 1996)

Psalm 104:30 says, "You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;
and You renew the face of the earth". In the Genesis
account, six times the expression "God said" or its
equivalent, occurs in reference to the progression of orders of living
creatures. The evidence suggests the renewal would refer to acts
of re-coding.

Progressive

All the major invertebrates appeared together in the Cambrian seas, said
to exist 570 million years ago and described as an "explosion"
of evolution. In an instant - in geological terms - more than 100 phyla (major
groupings) appear. The important body parts including eyes, digestive
systems, nervous systems, circulatory systems, etc. are present.

"Most of the major groups of animals (phyla) appear fully fledged
in the early Cambrian rocks and we know of no fossil forms linking
them." (Colin Patterson in Evolution, 1978, p. 133).

A major recoding would involve the appearance of the back-boned fishes.
Thousands of fossils are preserved from these early periods but not one
intermediate form. These new life forms contain the basic cell
mechanism but include much additional information.

Other extensive changes would be required for

cold blooded, egg laying reptiles

warm blooded placental mammals

warm blooded birds

the mechanics of flight in four very distinctive life forms: insects,
birds, bats and flying reptiles.

Man is distinct

I suspect that to this point many creationist Christians might be happy
to go along with the progressive creationists logic but will ask, "Surely man is a completely distinct creation"?

Although this is a possibility, certain facts would
indicate a "yes" and "no" answer here.

There are two sides to man's nature. His body comes from the earth
like the animals. It's an uncomfortable fact for some Christians
to follow that there is conclusive evidence to show that his Deoxyribonucleic acid: the chemical inside the nucleus of a cell that carries the genetic instructions for making living organisms.DNA is
98.2% the same as a chimpanzee and 97.8% the same as a gorilla!

There is something else we must take note of. It is reported that certain Sequence of DNA that are very similar to normal genes but that has been altered so they are not expressed.pseudogenes, caused by copying
"errors" are found in the exact The place on a chromosome where a specific gene is located, a kind of address for the gene.locus spots of the Deoxyribonucleic acid: the chemical inside the nucleus of a cell that carries the genetic instructions for making living organisms.DNA molecule in both humans and chimpanzees. This suggests a link of Deoxyribonucleic acid: the chemical inside the nucleus of a cell that carries the genetic instructions for making living organisms.DNA information but is no proof of the transmutation of species.
Whether there is a descending biological link with a huge
intervention by God to produce a new species (in this case man) is
not important. It is clear from the evidence God did use the same
"template" - with adjustments - and I am not
insulted!

But (and it's a big but) man was made in God's image (not a physical
image). So the other side of his nature, his psyche and spirit
comes from God's breath. Yes, "God formed man of the dust of
the ground". The word "formed" implies a process, and we need not see God
forming man like we would put together a gingerbread man.
"Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the
field". The same word "formed" is used and the
human body has the physics of the universe in it.

The word formed could refer to cellular ancestry. However, the
inbreathing of God clearly refers to man's spiritual nature which
separates him decisively from the animals.

Man is very different from the animals in that he has spiritual
awareness. He talks to an unseen God in prayer. No animal
ever shows any consciousness of the need for prayer. He has awareness
of a moral code written in a conscience and has concerns about death
and life after death. He has consciousness of self, a drive for
discovery and a capacity to recognize truth.

"God created man in His own image". The use of the verb
"create" - bara in Hebrew - appears to indicate
something more than re-coding. It appears very sparingly in
Genesis and appears only twice before: First, when matter
is created and second when life first emerges. While it can refer
to creation ex nihilo, sometimes rendered "out of
nothing", its usage is less restrictive. Its emphasis is on the
newness or uniqueness of what is brought forth. Only Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) can fellowship with the
Lord and only we are accountable to Him.

One re-coding of Deoxyribonucleic acid: the chemical inside the nucleus of a cell that carries the genetic instructions for making living organisms.DNA in Scripture is certain. Genesis 2:21 &
22 reads, And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and
he slept; and He took one of his "ribs" and He closed up the
flesh in its place. The rib which the Lord God had taken from the
man He made into a woman.... God changed the "xy"
factor and by doing so gave modern man a very good hint of progression
in creation through the intervention of the Creator adjusting the Deoxyribonucleic acid: the chemical inside the nucleus of a cell that carries the genetic instructions for making living organisms.DNA makeup.

Notes

Those that insist that the seventh day was twenty four
hours and therefore well in the past need to explain what God did
on the eighth such day. (i.e., did He go and create another universe ?)
Each of the six creation days closes with the same refrain :
"There was evening, and there was morning the ….day."
Its absence from the seventh day can be taken as a hint that the day has
not ended.

About the Author

Dale Tooley had been defending the faith against attack by the
media for over 15 years when he wrote his first book, Salting The
Press in 1983. During his first 15 years in defense of the
Christian worldview, Mr. Tooley assumed that the 24-hour creation
day interpretation was held by a small minority of Christians.
Having discovered that this interpretation is held by the majority
of Christians, Mr. Tooley has been involved in researching Christian
views on creation to better present the gospel to unbelievers. He is
director of Hasten The Light Ministries, which examines eschatology (end times
prophecy) of the Bible.

Other Resources

This book, written for Christians, examines creation paradigms
on the basis of what scripture says. Many Christians assume that the young earth
"perfect paradise" paradigm is based upon what the Bible says. In reality, the
"perfect paradise" paradigm fails in its lack of biblical support and also in
its underlying assumptions that it forces upon a "Christian" worldview. Under
the "perfect paradise" paradigm, God is relegated to the position of a poor
designer, whose plans for the perfect creation are ruined by the disobedience of
Adam and Eve. God is forced to come up with "plan B," in which He vindictively
creates weeds, disease, carnivorous animals, and death to get back at humanity
for their sin. Young earth creationists inadvertently buy into the atheistic
worldview that suffering could not have been the original intent of God, stating
that the earth was created "for our pleasure." However, the Bible says
that God created carnivores, and that the death of animals and plants was part
of God's original design for the earth.

Dr. Ross looks the creation date controversy from a biblical,
historical, and scientific perspective. Most of the book deals with what
the Bible has to say about the days of creation. Ross concludes that
biblical models of creation should be tested through the whole of
scripture and the revelations of nature.

The
Genesis Debate: Three teams of evangelical scholars tackle the
question of how God created the universe by presenting and defending their
respective views in a lively, yet friendly, forum. J. Ligon Duncan III and
David W. Hall defend the view that the Genesis creation days are six,
sequential days, each 24 hours long (the 24-hour view). Hugh Ross and
Gleason L. Archer defend the view that the Genesis creation days are six
sequential ages of time of unspecified but finite duration (the day-age
view). And Lee Irons with Meredith G. Kline defend the view that the
Genesis creation days are presented as normal days, but that the picture
of God's creating in six days and resting on the seventh is figurative
(the Framework view).